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After watching my wife play last night I saw her toss away a 2 sided wait for a single wait of a 1-Pin. I asked her why and she said that the 1-Pin is her lucky tile. I wasn't sure how to respond - but remembered that I'd read something in Bart's guide about Nagare (or 'Flow'). Jenn clearly believed that she would come out on top because her 1-Pin wouldn't let her down despite throwing away a chance at a better wait. This seemed to be the similar to the way Hisa Takei in the Saki animations always goes after 'Hell Waits'. Jenn isn't quite that devoted to harder waits - but clearly is superstitious on some things.

After reading more in Bart's Mahjong Guide (currently at v1.02) I see:

Barticle Mahjong Guide v1.02 wrote:オカルト [okaruto]

Devotees of the Occult school of thought believe that events in a game are determined by luck
and chance. Such a player will make decisions based upon their perception of Nagare.

デジタル [dejitaru]

Adherents of the rival school, Digital, believe that games are governed instead by the laws of
mathematics and probability. They make their choices based on statistical analysis.

I guess most people don't really belong to one extreme or the other. Maybe somewhere in-between. I guess I'd consider this a spectrum.

So, for sake of placing ourselves somewhere in this spectrum, where would you fall. Let's assume that we have the following scale:

O3 O2 O1 OD D1 D2 D3

Where D3 (red, all the way right) represents an extreme adherence to logic and probabilities in your play and O3 (blue, all the way left) represents extreme superstition on the flow of the game and the luck of the tiles (much more than just the probability of certain tiles coming up but rather that the tiles themselves have a sort of energy that you can sense/feel). OD represents the middle where you give both equal weight.

I'll start. I believe in the math and probability behind the game. But I don't discount that there is a natural flow that you need to pay attention to - I've seen a player really get into a groove that is hard to break free from. I'm going to put myself down as a D1 - generally favoring logic but also looking for those times when luck is going my way (or maybe not going my way! Defense time). Admittedly, I probably lean a bit more towards the Digital school when playing against the computer and a bit more to the Occult side when playing real people. I'm guessing my wife Jenn is O1.

D3

O1

To me, there's nothing superstitious about Takei Hisa's preference to bad waits. If there are 3 instances of a tile already in the pond, wouldn't you be more inclined to discard it if you have the 4th one? I play in a "digital mahjong" way but I also take luck and my own mentality into consideration when playing, putting myself into the other player's shoes and thinking about what I would do if I were them. When the flow of tiles is going bad(those times it seems like the more tiles you draw, the higher your shanten number gets), I go full defense and try to mess up the flow by calling tiles. When it's going good, I start being more offensive in my play style.

Good waits aren't always good. Ever had those moments where you call riichi and have this amazing 3 tile wait but they don't seem to come out? It's something like that haha.

Hmm.

I use words like "momentum", "flow" (not as much), "slump", "streak", "manipulate", etc. This is probably an influence from being a sports fan, while concerned with the numbers but explains "strange occurrences" with the luck factor. In addition, I let my mood be the decisive factor towards my games, which either makes or breaks me. Despite all that, I am appreciative of the probabilities this game dictates.

I'll go with the O1. Relying too much on the probabilities of this game - may render a player missing out on the more strange happenings to the game. Often times, these either requires a player to go off theory and play according the improbable.

There is such thing as playing "on tilt". I want to be on the D's but I still have much to learn.

BoyaSonny wrote:O1
If there are 3 instances of a tile already in the pond, wouldn't you be more inclined to discard it if you have the 4th one? I play in a "digital mahjong" way but I also take luck and my own mentality into consideration when playing, putting myself into the other player's shoes and thinking about what I would do if I were them.

That's not occult, that's just advanced playing. Going for a hell wait when you have a reason for that is fine. Going for a hell wait when your reasoning is "it will be ippatsu because flow" is not fine, especially if your alternative was a 5-way. Thinking how your opponents will react to your actions is very important, and using traps is a good play. Even random calls can be used for bluffing purposes, although it weakens your defense.

Although I was careful to maintain a neutral tone in my brief definitions above, I come from a scientific/mathematical background and I'm strongly Digital.

On the topic of Nagare, I would be happy to receive fun mahjong-themed lyrics for either of the Dean Martin songs That's Amore or Volare.

(tip: Tenpai rhymes with "big pizza pie")

*clear's throat*

When ... your....
draw makes you sigh
and your hand's in Tenpai...
That's Nagare!


When the flow
is so slow
and its out
you can't go...
That's Nagare!


When the wind's
blowing Ton
and the dealer
goes Ron
That's Nagareeeeeee!!!!

Bravo maestro! I barticularly liked the third verse.

Ha,ha ha,ha! That verses are cool!

As I did not played mahjong a lot I don´t know what to pick but I´ve always been an ocult type guy playing this game so I´ll pick O1 because I´m trying to improve in mahjong teory too, but it´s hard for me. To tell you the truth I´m not sure.

Many of you seem to be using the term "digital" too lightly. There is a third spectrum: "theory." Theory is a fairly neutral faction, and you might alter it depending on your own system or school of thought.

When building your hand, choosing ryanmen waits over penchan waits is fairly normal, and it is a basic theoretical procedure that both, digital and occult players adhere to under neutral conditions. However, sometimes occult players may go off-theory because they "feel" the less attractive wait is going to work better; or digital players may notice an increase in EV because while the wait is only half as good it grants two extra han, that the penchan part is too dangerous to discard against a particular opponent, that the current point difference prevents it, or so on. This is an over-simplification to make this explanation easier to understand; some decisions in-game are not this evident, and you will resort to one of the three factions. Sometimes two of these might overlap.

Sure enough, theory is based on simple logic. Many aspects of digital playing are not as evident until someone researches them for that particular ruleset. But it does not mean that (succesful) occult players ignore logic (and theory) altogether. Tsuchida Koushou is an example of an occult player that actually has got good results. During most of your hand, it is normal to play according to theory and only going astray from it in specific situations; what you do in such situations will characterize your style. However, a winning strategy must be linked to whatever discard you choose.

In other words, discarding random tiles every turn (because you "felt" it was the right choice) is NOT occult either. If that was the case, any beginner player would be called an occult player. It is just atheorical. In other words: baseless, weak play.

Also, simply choosing ryanmen waits over lesser waits do not make you instantly a digital player. Calculating, to the best of your abilites and based on actual statistical data (for THAT ruleset!), EV, Agari %, Houjuu %, Average placement movement value, and such, is the real digital way. Nowadays, this data (and how to calculate it) is available fairly easily, thanks to the many mahjong researchers out there. Mii, HAZ, Totsugeki Touhoku, etc. An even better approach, is researching relevant data yourself! All tenhou logs from the highest level table are publicly available.

Put short: if you make random moves, you are neither digital nor occult, just weak. If you make logical moves, you are just a theory-player. In order to be either, occult or digital, you need a higher level of dedication to your game, which I have yet to see in the playing style of many members around this thread.

As for me, I use theory , which I have adjusted based on the information I collected from valuable sources (researchers like mii, totsugeki and HAZ, and professional or proficient players like Kawamura Akihiro, Kajimoto Takunori and high ranked tenhou players).

I am not lazy enough to call myself occult, nor dedicated enough (or talented enough with numbers) to go fully digital.

Sure, much of this "theory" has a digital background, but that doesn't mean all of it does. I am by no means a "digital" player; I don't calculate anything about my hands. I just find a valid strategy or discard order based on the information I collected, and try my best to apply it, in order to minimize flaws. Like ASAPIN says: look at your hand, the discards, round number and point differences and that will give you the answer to any discard.

I remember reading this a few months ago. So, I took a look at it again:

http://www.mahjongnews.com/en/index.php ... ccult.html

Aside from luck, there is the "mental state". And I must say: if the mind turns away from the state of playing mahjong -- towards something fearful or delusional, the "momentum" supported by "good luck" turns into a drastic "dive". Upon mentioning this, I just came out of such a game. What a doozy.

Here's my reason for choosing the "occultist" mindset. It's very fun to think about the game along these lines. Nevertheless, I do acknowledge the patterns described within the "digital" mindset. It's near impossible to play good defense play without it.